After a series of updates from BioWare staff in the past few months seemed to hint at the future of Dragon Age being in safe hands, a new update from a BioWare writer seems to suggest there are some issues out at BioWare.

Patrick Weekes - a writer for BioWare - this week tweeted a fairly ominous tweet that seems to suggest the unannounced fourth game is struggling in development.

"Happy fourth birthday to #DragonAgeInquisition. Whatever happens in the future, I’m proud to have been part of a team committed to making its players’ lives better," tweeted Weekes.

"We have some of the best, geekiest, most passionate fans in the world, and my life is better for knowing you."

It sounds like the game may have encountered some errors. Ahead of the release of Anthem, EA is likely just trying to keep all eyes on its massively multiplayer game (hence why Dragon Age 4 hasn't been announced formally) - but messages like this from the BioWare staff don't fill us with confidence.

Only a few weeks ago, BioWare general manager Casey Hudson took to Twitter to clarify how the studio will be looking to the future of the series, and how it plans to approach any future games.

"Some weird stuff going around about how our future games will be influenced by Anthem," Hudson wrote on Twitter. "Of course when we do a Dragon Age game it will be designed from the ground up based on what Dragon Age should be. Same with Mass Effect...

"Anthem is a specific thing that's unique from our other IPs in many ways," he added, noting stories that are circulating, regarding the other games taking a lead from Anthem. "What carries forward is what we learn about game design, which is a constant evolution."

Anthem is the next big game coming from Bioware - due to launch early 2019 - but that doesn't mean the development team isn't thinking about projects beyond the launch of the shared-world shooter.

Speaking to Game Informer earlier this year, BioWare general manager Casey Hudson revealed that “[BioWare] do have people figuring out what the next Dragon Age will look like.”

“It is amazing to have new IP that you’ve developed and that you own, because that’s part of the fun for us: having created Mass Effect, Dragon Age and now Anthem.

"These are worlds that we can think of many years in advance about where we want to take the franchise, the story, and things like that.”

So that suggests that a new Dragon Age is still a ways off, but at least the franchise isn't dead and something in the series is likely to surface soon(ish). These reports were made before the strange tweet from the writer we reported on at the top of the article, though... we hope the game is still in progress and development continues well, but we'll have to wait for an official statement from EA before we know for sure.